Summer in Alberta: Taking a hike on the Athabasca Glacier

A guide holds the photographer's son Keifer over a "Kettle Hole" at the Athabasca Glacier in Jasper National Park, Alberta.

By:Todd KorolSpecial to the Star, Published on Wed Jul 30 2014

From Highway 93, running through Jasper National Park, the Athabasca Glacier looks daunting to climb. The glacier sits in a bowl surrounded by cloud shrouded mountain peaks. My son, Keifer, and I have come to hike the glacier with our guide Corin Lohmann, four Kiwis and a dog.

My blood starts pumping rapidly after the first vertical steps and soon we find ourselves among rugged rocks, walking past small arctic flowers and streams of very cold water running at the base of the ice.

Everything is dwarfed by the scale of the glacier. And the short 60-day growing season; trees that are 150 years old seem like match sticks lining the tops of ridges.

When I hit the ice, I slip the ice cleats on the bottoms of my hiking boots. “We don’t want anyone falling into an ice hole,” Lohmann tells us. Indeed, hikers have fallen into ice holes and have had to be rescued by Parks Canada. “That’s a good thing about your park pass; it includes getting rescued in the National Park,” he grins.

As the ice crunches underneath our feet, we make our way up the glacier as large wheeled red buses full of tourists pass.

There are three ways to discover the glacier: You can hike it on your own. (Not recommended unless you really know what you are doing.) You can take a tour bus from the ice fields centre. (Hop on, ride up and hop off on the ice.) Or you can go on one of the Ice Walks tours, which my group quickly agrees is the best option.

Our first stop is at a simple metal pole sticking up through the ice. The pole is used to measure how much the glacier is melting in a year. With the top of the pole just 30 cm. above the ice, no one pays it much attention.

As the group chats, Lohmann walks over and grabs a pole lying on the ice. He hoists it up in the air, towering almost 5 meters above him. “This is how much the ice melted last year,” he states.

The group suddenly falls quiet.

Our next stop is an ice plug. The plug is covered in snow and occurs over a melting ice hole. Some here can be more than 30 meters deep. “You don’t want to take a ride down one of these,” Lohmann says. He hangs onto the arm of each person in the group, so they can peer down the blue and black abyss. When Keifer’s turn comes up, his face lights up with the sense of adventure a 17-year-old has. My stomach quickly gets tight.

“That was so cool!” says Keifer as we hike back.

In the distance, on the way down, we see a dwarfed hiker walk along the top of a mountain peek. “It really puts you in your place,” one of our new New Zealand friends remarks.

We stop to fill our water bottles up with fresh clear glacier water. “This is probably pre-industrial-revolution water,” says Lohmann.

As we listen to the ice crunching below our feet, and look at the ice hanging over the rugged ridge lines, Keifer and I take sips of our water.

“This water tastes amazing,” he smiles.

“Yes,” I say. “And that was so much better than taking the bus up the glacier.”

More on thestar.com

We value respectful and thoughtful discussion. Readers are encouraged to flag comments that fail to meet the standards outlined in our
Community Code of Conduct.
For further information, including our legal guidelines, please see our full website
Terms and Conditions.